Wednesday, 29 May 2013

Liam Clegg reflects on the fallout from the Fund's recent trip to the UK, arguing that although the IMF's criticism of the coalition is unlikely to lead to a policy shift, it is still important. In fact, the IMF looks set tohave a significant impact on UK politics in the lead up to the next general election, becoming a key ‘reputational intermediary’ in the battle for economic credibility between the Coalition government and Labour opposition. "Once a year, a Mission Team made up of a small number of IMF
staff travels to each member state to conduct an audit of its current economic
policies and prospects. After discussions with country authorities, the Team
produces what is known as an ‘Article IV Report’. In general, these Article IVs
tend to remain very low-profile affairs, read by few people outside of the IMF
Boardroom. However, in times of crisis, Article IVs can become headline news.
Typically, in times of economic malaise one of two factors will propel an
Article IV into the realms of newsworthiness: either a government will draw
upon a positive Report as an authoritative ‘stamp of approval’ for their policy
agenda, or critics of a government will draw upon a negative Report as
authoritative evidence of the failure of the government’s programme. We can see
that both of these dynamics have been in operation in the UK in recent years.

Back in June 2011, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George
Osborne sought to direct the public gaze towards the recently completed Article
IV – particularly the opening sentence of the Mission Team’s Concluding Statement,
which read: ‘Aided by the implementation of a wide-ranging policy program, the
post-crisis repair of the UK economy is underway’. Indeed, through subsequent
Budget and Autumn Statements, Chancellor Osborne sought to further highlight
this boost to his, and the Coalition government’s, credibility as competent
economic managers.

Fast-forward to the recently completed 2013 Article IV, and
the story appears to be very different. Last month, before the Team had even
arrived, the characterisation in an interview
with Sky News from the IMF Chief Economist of the Chancellor’s fiscal
policy as being akin to ‘playing with fire’ attracted widespread media comment.
And this time, the Team’s Concluding
Statement opened with the suggestion that ‘the UK could boost growth by
bringing forward… spending on infrastructure and job skills’. Ed Balls,
Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, has been quick to capitalise on the IMF’s
judgement. On the day that the Mission Team’s Statement was released, Balls boldly
proclaimed that the IMF ‘backs the warnings we have made for three years
that the government’s plans are a drag on growth and risk doing long term
damage’. While the IMF intervention will be a source of irritation at Number 11
Downing Street, there are three reasons why it is highly unlikely that it will
ferment any notable policy shift from the government.

First, the Coalition government’s claims to being credible
economic managers rest heavily on making a sizable dent in the deficit. Rapid
deficit reduction was the core yardstick of success laid out by the Chancellor
in his Emergency Budget Statement of 2010, and the next election will in
significant part be fought on this ticket. As the action recommended by the IMF
would entail a short-term increase in the deficit (in the hope of attaining an
improved growth trajectory over the medium- to long-term), it does not sit well
with this core aim.

Second, the IMF itself suffers from something of a
‘credibility gap’ in relation to its macroeconomic policy advice. Critical
scholars have long complained of the sub-optimal outcomes associated with
Fund-supported programmes, and its own Independent Evaluation Office queried
the clarity and effectiveness of its guidance in a recent report.
Finally – and a closely related point – there remains widespread disagreement
over how governments should navigate the post-Global Financial Crisis
landscape. By calling into question what had rapidly become the ‘conventional
wisdom’ on the need to rapidly reduce government spending to try and keep
government debt-to-GDP ratios below the 90 percent mark, the recent Reinhart-Rogoff controversy
illustrates just how much policy-makers are in the dark over the ‘correct’ course
of action. In such a context of extreme uncertainty, a significant policy shift
is highly improbable.

This 2013 Article IV, then, probably won’t lead the
Chancellor to make even minor alterations to his fiscal programme. However, if
– as appears increasingly likely – the IMF becomes a key ‘reputational
intermediary’ in the battle for economic credibility between the Coalition
government and Labour opposition come May 2015 (or perhaps earlier), the
organisation will have a significant impact on UK politics. This time next
year, with the release of the 2014 Article IV, the picture will become a lot
clearer".

Will Vittery (PhD Candidate, Department of Politics) and
Liam will in June present a paper (‘Generating
Credibility in a Time of Crisis: Chancellors of the Exchequer and the
Reconstruction of Economic Competence, 2007-2012’) at the British International
Studies Association Annual Conference, Birmingham, exploring issues touched
upon in this blog.

Apologies by public figures
are not exceptional today. The last few decades have witnessed a sharp rise in
the number of public and political apologies, so much so that some scholars
believe we are living in an “age of apology”.

In advance of her international workshop, The Uses and Abuses of Political Apologies, Mihaela Mihai gives some background on state apologies for past injustices. What
are state apologies? What are the validity conditions for such apologies? And
what role do they play in democratic societies?

"It
is estimated that, between the 16th and the 19th
Centuries, Europeans traded approximately 8 million slaves out of Africa. Out
of this number, 2.5 million were transported on British ships. On the occasion
of the bicentenary of the 1807 Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, apologies by
the Anglican Church, by the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, and by the City
of Liverpool made it impossible for then Prime Minister Tony Blair to keep
silent. In an article published in the New Nation in
November 2006, and during subsequent commemoratory events at the Elmina castle
in Ghana, Blair controversially expressed “deep sorrow” over Britain’s
participation in the slave trade, a practice he equated with a crime against
humanity.

Apologies
by public figures are not exceptional today. The last few decades have
witnessed a sharp rise in the number of public and political apologies, so much
so that some scholars believe we are living in an “age of apology”. A gesture
formerly considered a sign of weakness, has grown to represent moral strength
and a crucial step towards potential reconciliation. Individuals, but more
often states, churches, the judiciary, the medical profession and universities
publicly issue apologies to those they have wronged in the past. Crimes ranging
from personal betrayals and insults all the way to enslavement, land
displacement, violations of treaties or international law, systemic
discrimination, wartime crimes, cultural disruptions, or political seizures
constitute reasons for public expressions of regret.

In
addressing the issue of state apologies, we can speak of three contexts:
domestic, international and postcolonial.

In the domestic realm, Canada’s
apology and compensation to Canadians of Chinese origin for the infamous
“Chinese Head Tax“ law and US’s apology and compensation for American citizens
of Japanese descent for the witch hunt they were subjected to during WW II are
relevant examples.

In the international realm we could discuss Japan’s “sorry”
for the abuse of Korean and Chinese “comfort women” and Belgium’s expression of
regret for not having intervened to prevent the genocide in Rwanda.

Finally, in
the postcolonial context, Australia’s and Canada’s apologies to their
Aboriginal communities for forced assimilation policies, Queen Elizabeth’s declaration
of “sorrow” for Britain’s treatment of the Maori community, and Guatemala’s
apology to a Mayan community constitute important illustrations.

In
interpersonal apologies an individual acknowledges and promises to redress
offences committed against another individual.While there is great variation among
authors on the number and exact role that different elements play within an
apology, there is a growing consensus that an authentic apology implies: an
acknowledgement that the incident in question did in fact occur and that it was
inappropriate; a recognition of responsibility for the act; the expression of
an attitude of regret and a feeling of remorse; and the declaration of an
intention to refrain from similar acts in the future.

When
applied to collective apologies for harms and wrongs featuring multiple
perpetrators – oftentimes committed a long time ago – most of the criteria for
valid interpersonal apologies don’t hold. Consequently, many have argued
against the very idea of collective apologies, and especially against the idea
of collective apologies for injustices that took place in the distant past.

Those
who want to recuperate the idea of a state apology for democratic politics
argue that we should give up the interpersonal model and think of collective
apologies politically. Thus, many have argued that
it is normatively sound to ascribe responsibility to collectives or
institutions as continuous in time and as transcending the particular
individuals constituting them at a certain moment.

In addition, it has been
pointed out that collectives are responsible for reproducing the culture that
made it possible for atrocities to go on uncontested for a long time.
Therefore, collective responsibility requires that political representatives
acknowledge the fact that an injustice has been committed, mark discontinuity
with the discriminatory practices of the past, and commit themselves to
non-repetition and redress.

At
this point, a caveat is necessary: collective responsibility must be
conceptually distinguished from collective guilt. For example, a present
government who has not committed any wrongs, can still take responsibility by
acknowledging that wrongs have been committed against a certain group or person
in the past, that it was “our culture” that enabled the abuses, that the abuses
have repercussions in the present, and that they will not be allowed to happen
again. A pledge to revise the very foundations on which the relations between
various groups are established within the polity, as well as material
compensations for the losses incurred by the victims give concreteness to the
apology.

In this sense, it can be safely said that collective apologies have
both a symbolic function (recognition of the offended group as worthy of
respect) and a utility function (the apology can be followed by reparations and
might lead to better inter-group relations).

These are the complex debates that we will seek
to contribute to on the 6th of June. Theoretical reflections will be
calibrated through encounters with real-life case studies in an attempt to get
at a more nuanced understanding of these frequently used practices." Workshop details.

Dr Alexandra Lewis, Research Fellow at the Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unitargues that the effectiveness of humanitarian assistance in Yemen has been undermined by a lack of cooperation and communication between regional and international donors. This leads to a duplication of efforts in some instances, and stalled or inadequate aid distribution in others.

"International
humanitarian assistance in Yemen has been seriously constrained by safety, under-funding,
and lack of cooperation between multilateral and bilateral aid delivery
agencies. Of equal importance, particularly under former-President Saleh’s
leadership, has been the role of information distribution and manipulation. To
address these issues, there is a need for greater cooperation between regional
and international donors. International Organisations also need to use less
confrontational language in humanitarian aid delivery, so as to promote project
cohesion with the Government of Yemen and other important regional actors.

Information Manipulation

It has been
difficult for the international community to access priority areas of Yemen.
For instance, before 2011, Sa’ada proved only to be accessible through the
sub-contracting of local staff. UN and affiliated agencies interviewed in 2010
noted that they had been unable to gain permission from the Yemeni state to
travel to the governorate and deliver aid, due to security concerns.

Reports on
safety levels, however, were treated with scepticism by local practitioners:
information restriction in Yemen has a history of undermining the effectiveness
of foreign interventions, with former-President Saleh having heavily restricted
the presence of international press officers and journalists in his country (Finn & Webb, 2011).

Ironically,
the Arab Spring has resulted in dramatic improvements to this situation,
stabilising Northern governorates by allowing them to operate independently. This presents an opportunity for the
international community to engage with Sa’ada, either by collaborating with
local CSOs and NGOs, or by direct intervention. Such assistance, however, needs
to emerge from independent security assessments.

The Language and Restrictions of
Humanitarianism

Lack of state
cooperation with international humanitarian aid delivery by the Yemeni
Government has stemmed from political justifications and from the language of
humanitarian action, which is built upon a framework of legal obligations to
protect and uphold human rights. Supporting international instruments has
previously delegitimised the state in the eyes of Northern, and (in some cases)
Southern, communities, by aligning the Government with Western liberal values.

The international community needs to be careful about restrictions on aid
allocation that can damage perceptions of Yemeni national independence. There
is scope for welfare, education and healthcare based interventions to be used
to promote equality, without necessarily being based on confrontational
narratives that might be seen as un-Islamic or un-Yemeni.

Lack of Cooperation

Regional
donors have had more success in reaching problematic areas, due to their less
restrictive programming guidelines. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates
(UAE), and Kuwait “lead the way among Arab nations in terms of providing
development assistance” and humanitarian aid across the Middle East (Riddell, 2013).

However, the
effectiveness of assistance has been undermined by a lack of cooperation and
communication between regional and international donors, leading to a
duplication of efforts in some instances, and stalled or inadequate aid
distribution in others.

Due to a lack of effective monitoring capacity in
conflict-affected governorates, international stakeholders voiced concerns at
the inefficiency and duplication of those projects that they were able to
deliver. These issues are linked to competing narratives of humanitarian and
development assistance, with regional donors tending to view foreign assistance
packages as overly prescriptive and international donors viewing regional aid
as insufficiently accountable (West Asia North
Africa Forum, 2009).

In particular, it is recommended that North
American and European Governments need to see regional donors as welcome
partners in development, taking assistance at face value and offering guidance
or coordination services where necessary, rather than striving to lead or
manage all humanitarian interventions in Yemen".

These opinions are drawn from a
book chapter, out later this
year in Antonio DeLauri’s (Ed) anthology: Humanitarianism,
Inc (I.B. Tauris).

In a piece recently posted on Whitehall Watch, Martin Smith (with Dave Richards and Patrick Diamond from the University of Manchester) argues that despite philosophical and practical differences over the nature and role of the state, there have been underlying synergies in how New Labour and the current centre-right Coalition have approached reforming the organisation of government and its relation to society.

"There is little doubt that the previous Labour Administration and the current Coalition government have discernibly different governing projects. Despite a rhetorical appeal to the contrary, Labour substantially increased both the size and role of the state, developing a new set of interventions in social policy and significantly increased government expenditure. The Coalition on the other hand has been focused on reducing the role of the state, decreasing government expenditure and making cuts of over 50,000 in civil service numbers.

However, despite philosophical and practical differences over the nature and role of the state, there have been underlying synergies in how they have approached reforming the organisation of government and its relation with society Both New Labour and the present centre-right Coalition have been motivated by an inclination to reform the topography of the state, devolving and decentralising power, while initiating a more participative mode of governing in which citizens play a greater role on the development and implementation of policy. Prior to 1997, Tony Blair boldy stated that: 'The era of big, centralising government is over'. In a similar fashion, David Cameron announced shortly after taking office in 2010: 'Today is the start of a deep and serious reform agenda to take power away from politicians and give it to the people.

Yet, what neither government has been able to do is to reconcile the tension between a desire for greater subsidarity by devolving power to local and regional bodies and the impulse to control all that goes on in politics..."

Thursday, 16 May 2013

The coalition government is pressing ahead with a long, expensive and controversial programme to replace the Trident nuclear weapon system beginning with the procurement of a new fleet of submarines armed with ballistic missiles. But serious questions have been asked about the necessity of staying in the nuclear weapons business and whether a like-for-like replacement of the current system is the most appropriate policy.

In a recent piece for The Conversation, Dr Nick Ritchie asks whether it could ever be right to use our
nuclear weapons to inflict devastation upon another society. We have made an
abiding commitment that we would only ever use nuclear weapons in accordance
with international humanitarian law applicable in armed conflict.

Here
Tom explains why Clausewitz’s famous dictum – ‘war is a continuation of
politics by other means’ – embraces a complexity and depth that is often
missed.

"Two
hundred years ago, in early May 1813, a 32 year old Prussian officer was recovering
from wounds sustained only days earlier during the chaotic Battle of Lutzen. He
had led repeated cavalry charges as part of the allied German and Russian forces
confronting Napoleon’s Grand Army. At one point, finding himself surrounded by
French soldiers, he had had to fight his way out in desperate hand to hand
combat. Also, his face was blackened from frostbite having spent the winter
pursuing French forces during their disastrous retreat from Moscow, and he had personally
witnessed the dreadful crossing of the Berezina River. This soldier was Carl
von Clausewitz.

Why is it that still
even today, senior figures such as Colin Powell and General McChrystal publicly
invoke the ideas of this man? I will try and shed light on this question.

My
central argument is simple: that the meaning of Clausewitz’s
famous dictum – ‘war is a continuation of politics by other means’ – embraces a
great deal of complexity and depth that is all too often missed. Clausewitz’s aphorism
appears almost everywhere, but often only in passing, and it’s often mistakenly
represented as the totality of his theorising, or used out of context in a simplistic sense. So, for instance, Martin van Creveld could claim that
Clausewitz believed war was ‘a rational instrument for the attainment of
rational social ends’.

However,
in recent years there has since been something of a renaissance in Clausewitz
studies and I think what we are seeing is a shift from the idea of the
primacy of policy to the primacy of politics.
Clausewitz stated that, ‘Nothing is more important in life than finding the
right standpoint for seeing and judging events, and then addressing them.’ War
as a continuation of politics,
properly understood, was for him precisely that standpoint.

I
argue that there are three key political perspectives of war in Clausewitz’s
thought.

First, political conditions essentially provide the broad context and
give meaning and form to the other two perspectives. For Clausewitz, political
conditions represented the ‘womb of war’ from which it emerges; it largely
explains the ways group fight, who they fight and, indeed, the objects they
fight for. Second, war’s subordination to policy presents a unilateral,
subjective perspective, and it is from this perspective that most of the
mistaken assumptions of pure rationality derive. Here it is important to distinguish
between Clausewitz’s prescriptive insights and those that simply seek to
describe the phenomenon. Clausewitz claimed that in war there would be for the
actors involved a definite if messy interaction between ends and means, that
weaves a thread of reason through the whole, even if the tapestry hangs
together only loosely given the many barriers to perfect rationality that exist
in war.

Third,
there is often a failure in reading Clausewitz to progress from the subjective
idea of subordination to the wider implications of ‘continuation’. These two
perspectives are interwoven in On War.
In the crucial Chapter 6B of Book 8 of On
War, the transition from one perspective to the other is almost missed. To
take just one instance of this, he states, ‘When whole communities go to war
the reason always lies in some political
situation, and the occasion is always due to some political object. War, therefore, is an act of policy.’

So,
essentially for Clausewitz war is both a continuation of the interactive
political situation and the
instrument employed by the actors that make up that situation. The two
perspectives are inseparable and implicated in the meaning of the other.
‘Continuation’ thus embraces all three perspectives that I have identified and
serves as holistic means of understanding the relationship between politics and
war: war is a continuation of a multidimensional political situation comprised
of the competing policies of those involved, both of which are shaped in
important ways by preexisting political conditions.

There
are four theoretical implications emerging from this.

First, war can never be
understood as autonomous but is always part of a wider whole, which is politics
– war is itself a form of political behaviour, only it employs different means.

Second, war is ensconced within a perpetually shifting ‘political web
of war’ – the multitude of actors and relationships within, between and beyond
belligerents.

Third, during war there will be a continuous, simultaneous and
non-linear reciprocal feedback between the use of force, politics and policy.

Fourth, understanding the psychology of the politics of war brings all these
perspectives and implications together – the role of perceptions are crucial to
understanding the political effects of the use of force. War does not contain in itself the elements for a final
settlement, but beyond situations where the enemy is completely destroyed
(which is very rare), the enemy must be persuaded
to submit. This all underlines the often ambiguous nature of military victory
and the way in which politics has an unnerving habit of delivering its own
verdict on events.

The
complexity of the politics of war is too often ignored by theorists and
commanders alike: war is conceived as unilateral, autonomous, linear, material
and rationally controllable. It might be said that much of this is obvious,
common-sense, maybe even banal. I would argue, in many respects it is. But it
is staggering how often these basic points are forgotten or ignored. In Iraq and Afghanistan, Western states have
struggled to employ their militaries as effective instruments of policy, and primarily
I would argue due to political myopia, rather than to any major military
shortcomings.

Force
has often been employed as if in a political vacuum; little attempt has been
made to understand the enemy, it’s objectives, character or psychology; policy has
been incoherent, short-termist and introspective; political actors have failed
to properly understand the wars they oversee or provide clear guidance as to
objectives; the military has therefore dominated strategic decision-making in
what are intensely political situations; and instruments of force have been
used for their own sake, simply because they are available. And interestingly, what
course corrections have taken place have primarily been of a political nature:
the Sunni Awakening; the move towards reconciliation in Afghanistan and so
forth. Most regrettably, troops on the ground have been repeatedly let down by
strategic ineptitude and their efforts not translated into meaningful political
effect.

The complexity of Clausewitz’s terse dictum calls for the
sophisticated socio-political understanding and psychological intuition of genius
– Clausewitz states that even ‘Newton himself would quail before the algebraic
problems it could pose’. However, given that war is always an interactive
phenomenon, perhaps the only real comfort is that the political genius required
only needs be relative, not absolute. That Clausewitz recognised the
fundamentally complex political nature of war in an age dominated by the
annihilation battle is, I think, testament to his own remarkable genius".